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Headed by David Spiegelhalter, professor for the public understanding of risk at the prestigious university, the research aims to provide answers to questions such as why fertility plummeted in the late Victorian people - despite women at the time having little or no access to contraception.

According to Spiegelhalter, the fall can be attributed to women abstaining from sex - a finding in sharp contrast with modern Britons who can enjoy a spot of duvet action without consequence.

'For every conception, there are 999 heterosexual acts without procreation,' Spiegelhalter explained during an appearance at the Cheltenham Science Festival.

'So the poor old Victorians - there is a lot more non-procreative sex going on now.'

The 20th century has seen a sea change in British attitudes to sex, with the repressed Briton of the slippers and tea stereotype giving way to the liberated 1960s, and the current liberal attitude to the pleasures of the flesh.

That, says Anne Johnson, an epidemiologist at University College London who co-founded the British National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles in the 1970s, is down to easy access to contraception.

'The biggest change from the 19th century is in women's lives,' she revealed in an interview with the Sunday Times.

'In the past, sex was often dangerous for them in many ways, including childbirth, illegal abortions and disease.

Consequences: For Victorian women, having sex often ended in pregnancy and a dangerous childbirth

'Nowadays, there is more opportunity to have consensual sexual relationships, safe births and to control fertility.'

Spiegelhalter is now writing a book on British attitudes to sex, entitled Sex By Numbers, which attempts to explain the modern penchant for having as much sex as possible.

Unsurprisingly, teenage fumbles lead the way with 30 per cent of people having had sex before the age of 16.

Interestingly, people between the ages of 65 and 74 are also making love more often, with 42 per cent of women and 60 per cent of men reporting at least one sexual encounter in the previous year.